Sunday, June 5, 2016

Three Reasons Conservative Christians Will Lose the Transgender Debate

“Three reasons conservative
Christians will lose the transgender debate.” That was the title of an article
on Religion News Service last month.

The article, by American journalist
Jonathan Merritt, comes along at a time when a number of Christian
denominations are debating which bathrooms transgender people can use, along
with the older issue of same-sex marriage.

In it, Merritt notes that churches
have gone this route before. They started preaching against opposing LBGT
rights in the 1960s; in the 1980s, some even proclaimed that AIDS was God’s
judgment on LGBT people.

But despite all their efforts, gay
rights are a fixture of life in Canada, the U.S. and many other countries.

And now the issue is what bathrooms
transgender people can use. Once again, some church leaders are preaching
sermons against it.

And just like with same-sex
marriage, they will lose this fight, too, says Merritt.

“Sadly, their messages are just as
disconnected from reality as their response to the LGBT rights movement decades
ago,” he writes. “By recycling old tactics, conservative Christians are poised
to lose the transgender debate in America.”

And what are those tactics? Merritt
lists three.

First, they focus on ideology while
ignoring people.

“When Christians talk about
transgender issues, they often frame it as a clash of worldviews or
ideologies,” he says. But those in favour of it “use real stories of real
transgender people with real struggles who experience real oppression.”

This
approach “usually wins in public debates because it touches listeners’
hearts,” he writes, adding that talking
about “God’s law” doesn’t work when your opponents are talking about loving
couples who can’t “provide health insurance for their same-sex spouse or pass
along their shared possessions as inheritance.”

Talking about ideology and doctrine
makes Christians appear to lack compassion, he says, and makes them look like
they are “attacking some of society’s most vulnerable people.”

A second bad tactic is to “proof text from scripture,” Merritt says, along with
discounting science.

Appealing to the Bible doesn’t work in
an increasingly secular and pluralistic society where the Bible is no longer
seen as a source of truth and authority for many people. And using the creation
account in Genesis is no substitute for science for the majority of Canadians.

The third bad tactic is to “rely on
fear,” he says, noting that people today don’t respond well to those kinds of
messages. Plus, he says, they know that the future of western society doesn’t
depend on whether or not people of the same sex love each other.

States Merritt: “Conservative
Christians spent years claiming that gay marriage would destroy all marriage,
unravel Western society, and ultimately lead to people marrying their animals.
Well, it is legal now, and I’m happy to report that exactly zero straight
marriages have been affected by the legalization of gay marriage.”

It’s not only Merritt who thinks
this way; so does a leading spokesperson for conservative Christianity in the
U.S.

When it comes to LGBT rights,
conservative Christians “are on the losing side of a massive change that’s not
going to be reversed, in all likelihood, in our lifetimes,” said Albert Mohler,
president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Of course, there are still many
religious people who see their mission to reverse these changes and bring
America and Canada “back to God.” But that is also a losing strategy—not only will
they fail to reverse these societal changes, they may also be laying the
foundation for the end of their church groups.

The fact is that if these leaders
want their groups to exist for their children in the future, they will need to
find a way to adapt to our changing culture today. Many of their youth have
already made the change; how many will stay in a faith that doesn’t accept
their gay and transgender friends?

Similarly, when it comes to
attracting non-believers, how many will be attracted to groups that exclude
people based on sexual orientation?

To be sure, this isn’t an easy time
for many faith groups. They are caught in the transition with some members
adamantly opposing change, while others just as adamantly press for it. Some
Christian denominations are splitting over it.

But if Merritt is right, the fight
is already over. It’s just a matter of how to welcome LGBT people—not if it
will happen.